and away we go!

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So, appearently, the way a blog works is I keep on making entries then people stop emailing me hassling me to find out whatäs happening - so Iäll make some backdated ones now. You may notice that Iäve got ä instead of ' most of the time here and sometimes mix y and z, that's becuase Iäm using a german keyboard´- harden up.

So, After a full day in Amsterdam, I was off - heading north towards the longest dijk in the world , first day a short one to get myself into it. Had lunch in the comically named Hoorn, full of 400 yearold buildings leaning at bizaare angles - earthquakes clearly not a major risk. I liked Hoorn until it stole my MP3 player - I looked everywhere in that town for it, recovering my route twice but it was gone along with all my Minuit, Crowded House and 3LW = Boo, now Iäve no music to listen to, and I had been loving it.

the biking was nice, all along wee canals, well old towpaths beside canals, in fact. these paths have been converted into paths that are sometimes bikes and walkers only, sometimes motorbieks too, and often two-way roads as well, despite being only just over one lane wide, most of the traffic is on the real roads but for farms these paths can be the only route to the outside world. the dutch counryside really is flat, very flat, so on a cloudy day you easily lose your oreintation (but more on that later). One stragne thing for a kiwi is that becuase all the farms are small long and narrow and arranged on square blocks with each farm house next to the road and built like a suburban house, you can cycle through lots of countryside without actually seeing anything other than houses, just glimpses of fields behind them.

Anyway I stayed at a bed and breakfast with a little old lady who spoke no english.

I haven't been wearing my helmet while biking, no_one else does it and some dutch kids made fun odf me for having one at all(its sitting on my carry rack, safely protecting my most valuable asset, which turns out no to be my head but my sister's digital camera.

covered about 50km on this first day, maybe 3 hours riding - bike computer not working.

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